The 5000-year-old Herbivorous Dragon

Chapter 61 - The beginning of a terrible fraud

I was being eaten. I’ve been threatened by people saying they’d make a soup out of me, but being actually bitten was a first for me.

“I taste bad! I’m telling you I’m awful! Ouchchchch!”

I was hopping up and down trying to throw the spirit off, but she didn’t want to let go of my neck. Just when I thought Rēko’s going to turn livid seeing this…

“So she’s already play-biting. It looks like this spirit is already demonstrating her allegiance to the Evil Dragon Lord.”

Rēko made a triumphant face despite being wrong. No matter how I thought about it, the sharp piercing pain on my neck was a sign she wasn’t playing around. When I started jumping around like a restive horse trying to shake her off somehow, the spirit suddenly stopped biting and lightly fell down onto the ground.

“Ah, you finally let go―― wait, are you okay? You fell down pretty hard.”

I tried calling out to her but she didn’t really respond. She only picked up the fist-sized rock lying nearby and stuffed it into her wide open mouth. Crunch crunch, just like that she started calmly munching them.

“I see, rocks are your favourite food. Maybe because you’re originally a mountain spirit?”

Sheina said so while nonchalantly gathering nearby stones.

“So that means I’ve been mistaken for a rock―― wait, ouch!”

Even though the spirit was right in front of my eyes, the pain streaked through my tail this time. When I looked back to see whose doing it was, it actually turned out that Rēko had chomped down on my tail before I knew it.

“Ee, erm, what are you doing, Rēko?”

While clinking and clacking her teeth loudly, Rēko answered,

“I just wanted to demonstrate that my feelings of respect and affection for the Evil Dragon Lord do not lose to that spirit.”

“I understand your feelings just fine without this, so please, never do that again.”

“I hear and obey. Incidentally, I can also munch on rocks if I feel like it.”

“Stop burning with a strange sense of rivalry.”

While we were busy with our antics, the soldiers raised a commotion, screaming “Ah, the octopus got away again!” Octopus was most likely a nickname the long-haired demon earned due to his slippery escape tricks. It was quite awful.

“I’m extremely sorry, Evil Dragon Lord. I’ll catch him immediately and make him talk how to turn the spirit back to――”

“Now, now, Rēko~! It’s fine, isn’t it! Couldn’t you forgive him with your generous heart? After all I’ll take care of Ms Spirit, come on.”

When Rēko tried to chase after him, Sheina actually restrained her with a full Nelson hold. It was obvious she was trying to keep the spirit close by.

“Right? Evil Dragon Lord also doesn’t mind, right?”

“Well… I won’t really stop you anymore, but is that spirit fine with it?”

“It doesn’t look like she minds, so I guess it’s fine?”

“Wait, that’s going to be troublesome Sheina.”

Thereupon Haizen admonished his daughter.

“The spirit staying like this would mean giving up on the gold mountain. How am I supposed to explain helplessly losing the mountain we were ordered to guard?”

“It’s fine~. I’m sure they won’t mind it if we just hide the whole demon matter, and then say that the spirit materialized herself on a whim so we drew her in. Besides, they can expect a rise in military strength if a precious spirit user were to appear.”

“However… judging from appearances that looks like nothing but a measly feral child. Leaving aside whether we can win her over as a potential military strength, if I even were to give an explanation to the headquarters, getting an approval at this stage would be…”

“Ah, I see…”

Both Sheina and Haizen held their chins in contemplation.

“Then, let’s say I’ll tame that spirit right now and bring out skills impossible for a normal human being, shooting beams and stuff, then the headquarters would agree, right?”

“Well that may be true, but isn’t that too hard even for you?”

“Too na?ve~.” After leaving these words behind, Sheina jumped over to the spirit as though she wanted to swallow her whole.

“We’re friends after our chat yesterday, right? Here, come on. You’ll give me power, like… one two three and it’s done in a jiffy, right?”

『The sun disappears on a clear sky.』

The spirit was only worried about Sheina blocking the sunlight with her body. Haizen shook his head while muttering good grief.

“There’s no helping it. Lady Kin, after all you’ll have to go after that demon and get information――”

“Not yet!”

“What’s wrong, Sheina. Is there still something?”

“Yeah, it’s as I expected. It’s impossible to tame a spirit in a single day even with a genius like me here. That’s why, come on, I want a bit of time.”

“But we cannot hide an abnormality like this for a long time. It’d no doubt reach the headquarters’ ears before long. Scratch that, I’ll report it.”

“Exactly, papa can write everything honestly. And then, I’ll bring our『Ms Spirit』to the headquarters and reveal some earth-shattering techniques.”

“But just now you didn’t seem likely to succeed.”

Fufun, Sheina laughed proudly with her nose held high, this time she placed both of her hands not on the spirit, but on Rēko’s shoulders.

“That’s why, how about this? The one we’ll have come and make the demonstration of spirit arts at the headquarters won’t be the real spirit, but our cute Rēko over here. We’ll have her play as a spirit and BANG, do something real flashy in one shot.”

I felt like an unimaginable fraud was about to take off.